I think there are something like three half hour bulletins at various points in the evening to suit different timezones, as well as a program hosted by Jim Middleton and a business show as well. That's in addition to Foreign Correspondent and a whole lot of other ABC news programs like Four Corners and Lateline.

There is a schedule on their website.A handful of bulletins go out each day. There is one which airs at 9am AEST (available on ABC2). They also carry the Midday Report and at one stage Sky Business Report w/ David Koch!

i remember reading a while back that the channel was once owned by 7.. most of the programing was a mix of tv programing from all the networks in Australia eg Home & Away, Blue Healers and such, does the channel these days cover such shows?

Australia Network and the channel once owned by Seven are not the same thing.

Seven's channel was a private venture. Australia Network is fully funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).

DFAT issued a tender out about 5/6years ago, which the ABC won and branded the channel as ABC Asia Pacific. This was an upstart channel, completely independent of the Ch7 one, which was shut down before hand. 2-3years ago the tender was up for renewal, Sky and the ABC contested it, with the ABC winning. The channel was re badged 'Australia Network' - probably under DFAT directions. Whomever wins the current tendering, of which I believe only Sky and the ABC are contesting, the channel will probably stay as "Australia Network".

I just found this video on the net of ABC News Breakfast on the Australia Network

Note that the Australia Network logo has covered the ABC2 logo, i think its done well, better then how WIN covers Nines logos.
Also see that ABC4 News is starting soon i wounder how much of that will be simulcast on the Australia Network and how that will impact the other Australia Network programing

With regard to the articles posted in TSR about the Australia Network - why does it need to go to a tender process to run it? This is meant to be a channel run by Australians representing the Australian point of view overseas - not multinational corporations trying to make a fast buck! Sky News doesn't need the Government seal of approval to run such a service - they've got the resources to start up one all by themselves quite frankly.

If Sky wants to run Australia Network, they can do so in conjunction with the ABC, SBS, Seven, Nine and Ten. Have ABC and Sky as senior managing partners, but all own a stake in the channel, and all contribute. Otherwise - leave it with the ABC, or close it down.

Edited by Big Dan, 22 June 2010 - 06:45 AM.

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With regard to the articles posted in TSR about the Australia Network - why does it need to go to a tender process to run it? This is meant to be a channel run by Australians representing the Australian point of view overseas - not multinational corporations trying to make a fast buck! Sky News doesn't need the Government seal of approval to run such a service - they've got the resources to start up one all by themselves quite frankly.

If Sky wants to run Australia Network, they can do so in conjunction with the ABC, SBS, Seven, Nine and Ten. Have ABC and Sky as senior managing partners, but all own a stake in the channel, and all contribute. Otherwise - leave it with the ABC, or close it down.

I really don't see Sky wanting to get into bed with the ABC. Especially with their recent public spats and something called ABC News 24.

Sky News Australia could broadcast into Fiji, Bangladesh, Singapore and the many other countries that it airs in on its own, but winning the Australia Network contract makes carriage a lot easier as there's already existing free-to-air and cable/sattelite tv provider agreements and it gets $$ from the Federal Government to run it.

Sky has a lot to gain from winning the tender. They could have reporters all over the Pacific and Asia, become more competitive to ABC News 24 and gets to air Sky News Australia into new markets... All paid by the Australian taxpayer and advertising. The downside is that rolling news bulletins would replace a lot of the general based programming on there.

Why would anyone in the Asia/Pacific want to watch Sky News Aus on Australia Network, when they probably get better news services either locally or from the BBC etc?

Admittedly, Australia Network's hardly the finest example of Australian television as it is, but it at least shows a variety of programming in addition to the Australian-based news content. And don't forget the footy - I know for a fact that many homesick expats love watching the footy on AN

I don't quite understand why expanding into Asia is of much use to them when they have enough troubles producing compelling content for their own channel at home.. unless it's of course to undermine the ABC one way or another. If the Australia Network is meant to be an example of 'public diplomacy' on our part it wouldn't look too good if it was outsourced to Murdoch and News Limited, let alone Sky!

Wouldn't ABC be best suited to concentrating on broadcasting inside Australia? Putting all its resources into its channels here? While Sky News might not be best suited to run a channel like Australia Channel, couldn't the Government just get a small team to run it and license content? Do they really need to tender it out?

I really don't see Sky wanting to get into bed with the ABC. Especially with their recent public spats and something called ABC News 24.

Sky News Australia could broadcast into Fiji, Bangladesh, Singapore and the many other countries that it airs in on its own, but winning the Australia Network contract makes carriage a lot easier as there's already existing free-to-air and cable/sattelite tv provider agreements and it gets $$ from the Federal Government to run it.

Sky has a lot to gain from winning the tender. They could have reporters all over the Pacific and Asia, become more competitive to ABC News 24 and gets to air Sky News Australia into new markets... All paid by the Australian taxpayer and advertising. The downside is that rolling news bulletins would replace a lot of the general based programming on there.

I don't see why my tax dollars should go towards assisting a corporate giant like News Corp, and to a lesser extent, Seven and Nine, to expand their services overseas, when they have the resources to do so themselves.

Why would anyone in the Asia/Pacific want to watch Sky News Aus on Australia Network, when they probably get better news services either locally or from the BBC etc?

Admittedly, Australia Network's hardly the finest example of Australian television as it is, but it at least shows a variety of programming in addition to the Australian-based news content. And don't forget the footy - I know for a fact that many homesick expats love watching the footy on AN

And at least it's run by Australians showcasing the Australian point of view.

I don't quite understand why expanding into Asia is of much use to them when they have enough troubles producing compelling content for their own channel at home.. unless it's of course to undermine the ABC one way or another. If the Australia Network is meant to be an example of 'public diplomacy' on our part it wouldn't look too good if it was outsourced to Murdoch and News Limited, let alone Sky!

Exactly. If it is meant to be a channel representing Australia and Australians, then Australians should be owning and controlling it fully. Not a company owned by a mixture of the British (BSkyB), Americans (KKR - they own half of Seven Media Group), Europeans (CVC) and Australians (Seven Group).

Wouldn't ABC be best suited to concentrating on broadcasting inside Australia? Putting all its resources into its channels here? While Sky News might not be best suited to run a channel like Australia Channel, couldn't the Government just get a small team to run it and license content? Do they really need to tender it out?

Couldn't the same argument be put forward for every public broadcaster who does an overseas channel? You are right though - it shouldn't be tendered out. It should remained owned and controlled by DFAT, with considerable input from the commercial networks and the ABC. As I said, let ABC and Sky be joint senior managing partners and go from there.

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